


practicing my accents, picking at old sutures

by polyphobiaa



Category: Just Roll With It (Podcast)
Genre: Flashbacks, Gen, Injury, Scars, im trying to keep it fairly easy to read but we'll see how that goes, these tags will probably get way bigger as it continues waho
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:42:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26263618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polyphobiaa/pseuds/polyphobiaa
Summary: a meditation on scars accumulated throughout the life of the older vengolor brother.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 19





	practicing my accents, picking at old sutures

sylnan put himself into harm’s way more often than not. he was bold, and brave, and stupid for his boldness, and he convinced himself from a young age it was better he got hurt than someone else. he could take it. he could bounce back, or get out of the way, or hit them where it hurt most and run when they were down.

most of the time, anyways.

when he was in the orphanage - no point in sugar-coating it, he was a punching bag. mostly to keep br’aad from having to take those punches. (not that it worked, br’aad still got hit, but he got hit less. that was something.) so when the time came, and the other boys were looking for trouble, he made sure he was the first one they saw.

this never turned out “good” in a traditional sense.

sylnan must have been six or seven - it’s hard to remember this far back - when it happened. the details are blurry, faded and blocked out with age.

how he remembers it is this.

he got into a fight. not that that’s unusual. he got into a fight, and the usual punches were thrown by boys a year or two older than him. he got knocked down, and then he got pinned down.

and then he found out the older boy had a knife.

as a kid, he had just accepted this (of course he did, why wouldn’t he?), but looking back, it confuses him. where did it come from? how did he get it? why was he pointing it at sylnan, who was so young, so much smaller than him? (this last question is obviously answerable. sylnan knows the answer. he doesn’t have to like it.)

in any case, the logistics of the knife don’t change the outcome.

they tried to cut off his ears. he remembers that. he can feel the notch in them even now. he doesn’t remember exactly what they said - nothing good. but he remembers the way it felt. like no pain his little six-year-old body had ever felt before. he screamed, because of course he did, and he kicked one of them in the stomach as hard as he could, and the boy fell back and dropped the knife. and dropped sylnan, too, just long enough for him to run away. he was always faster than any of the other boys.

he spent several hours avoiding anybody, gently touching the cut on his ear, wincing and having his hand come away with blood. he wrapped it in a bandage before he saw br’aad again, pulled his hair over it, tried to pretend it wasn’t there and didn’t hurt.

the last thing he wanted was for his brother to worry.

br’aad worried anyways, and asked questions when the bandage came off about what happened to him, but sylnan was an expert at deflection and distraction. to this day, he still hasn’t told br’aad what exactly happened. not that it takes a genius to figure it out.

he runs his hand over that scar some nights. it’s long-healed now, and he’s grown so far past that initial pain. he’s felt pains so much worse, a thousand times worse than the boy he was back then could even conceive of. but it was the first. nostalgic, in a sick sort of way.

the first of many.

**Author's Note:**

> wooooooo!!!! it's new!! it's fresh!!! it's hopefully going to be five chapters of my sylnintrospection, don't you all just love it. sorry he's the only jrwi character i write about, he just comes very naturally to me.


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